GSMA Releases Mobile Economy 2013 Report

Posted February 25, 2013 at 6:11pm by iClarified | Please help us and submit a translation by clicking here | 5346 views

GSMA has released its Mobile Economy 2013 report revealing that the global market has grown by 13.7% since 2008 with nearly 7 billion total connections and an additional 2 billion connections projected to be added by 2017.

--3.2 billion people of the 7 billion on earth benefit from having a mobile phone. A further 700 million subscribers are expected by 2017, but this still leaves a huge potential for further growth.

In absolute terms Asia Pacific will add nearly half of all new connections between now and 2017, while 22% will be from Europe and North America combined. Data continues to be a major area of growth for mobile operators with all regions showing impressive growth rates. In fact, total traffic volume in 2012 alone was higher than previous years combined and globally data is projected to grow by 66% p.a. through 2017.

Data growth is driven by the increased penetration of smartphones, in particular in emerging markets – and by increased data consumption per subscriber due to the faster download speeds and the uptake of data-hungry applications like video made possible by new technology such as 4G.--

You can download the full report from here or check out the infographic below for some more statistics.